


ouvrez, on commémore la foudre

by theviolonist



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 10:12:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/417680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The love story of Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles, as seen by one Liam Payne or the one where most of one direction are a rock band, and Harry is a minx, as usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ouvrez, on commémore la foudre

**Author's Note:**

> Hum. Title (and most of the story) inspired by Noir Désir's song Les Persiennes (also inspired by Bertrand Cantat's - he's the singer - life). Also, what is this even. I've never written so much about any of my fandoms, I swear. Oh, and I wound up using Liam POV, even though I don't like him. Idek. Just roll with it.

It was Louis's idea, of course. They were getting a drink (read: getting hammered) in a bar near uni, moaning about their respective deadlines (Liam was the only one who always finished his papers in time, mostly because he never got drunk quite as much as them), and Louis shushed them.

"I want to make an announcement," he said, which was never a good sign, and then, "Let's be a band!"

It was as stupid as it sounded, but they were all drunk enough to find the idea  _bloody marvellous._  Niall said it was perfect, since he played the guitar, and Zayn said he did too, which wasn't true, because Liam knows him well enough to know he's only played one instrument in his life, and it was the harp – of all things – from the age of three to fifteen. Louis said he could sing (he can't).

Liam figured he'd play the drums.

He also figured they would forget all about it when they'd be sober, but Louis is nasty and stubborn, and so it stuck. They were awful at first, playing in Liam's father's garage because he was the only one who lived closed enough from on uni, laughing and drinking and being silly and sometimes playing music. Liam doesn't regret these days. They were good – easy.

He didn't think they'd get better, and he still doesn't know how it happened, but it did, somehow. They practiced more and more, started getting gigs in bars and playing for  _people_ , real people who smiled and danced and spilled beer all over themselves when they clapped. They released a CD with an independent label, and it didn't do very well, but they sold a few copies, enough to wonder what people were doing when they listened to their music, if they made love or vacuumed or just jumped up and down and let themselves be swooped in.

Louis writes all the lyrics. They weren't very good at first, mostly basic stuff about love and life and rock'n'roll (because that's what they do, rock'n'roll – this too, Liam can't really believe it), but they grew better, a little bit more refined and a little bit more  _Louis_ too, raw and emotional and bouncing and happy and angry and joyful.

Liam found out he liked playing drums. It wasn't just  _noise_ , after all, wasn't just the mindless rhythm he'd always heard in it before he started playing. He takes solace in it now, in the regular beat that felt like a big heart, relentlessly pumping more and more blood, refusing to die. He loves being hidden, too. He can watch the crowd and the others – see sweat dripping down their backs, sticking the cloth of their T-shirts to their skin, see Zayn duck his head and close his eyes, his eyelashes turning him into a porcelain doll. He's good where he is. He likes it.

It means he can control the disasters, too – he likes that he's not  _in there_ , that he doesn't have his nose shoved in the adrenalin and the glitter and the sweat, the boundless elation you can get drunk on so easily. He feels naked without his drums when he walks in the street now, so vulnerable with nothing but his frail hands to protect him if someone – something – attacks.

They got famous. Liam doesn't really remember how it happened, by which incredible  _tour de force_  they got hurled into the nation's eye, but it happened and suddenly they were this rock band to 'look out out for', to 'follow'. Won a Brit, a Grammy. Yada yada. Finished college and didn't go on with their studies, learned how to wear bespoke tuxedos right and how to be just the right kind of edgy.

Another band would have complained about their music being desecrated, twisted to conform to the standards of the ever-so-elusive 'mainstream', but they were never really about the music. They're more about the fun and the drinking and the dancing, and what they do on stage is just that with a bit of twisting their fingers and their vocal chords. Maybe that's what drew people in. Maybe they're really good and just insanely lucky. Maybe they have a talent  _real_ musicians would kill for. Liam doesn't really care, and neither do the other three, or so he supposes. They don't really talk about serious things, except when it's dark and they're drunk, when the night is black and boundless behind them.

Their first American tour was a success, complete with screaming fangirls they'd grown accustomed to already and immense banners wearing their names surrounded by hearts and witty comments. Some nights they spotted a 'Do it already' or a 'Zouis 4ever' floating above the crowd. Bromance was trendy, and they laughed at being paired off by fangirls. Only Louis is gay, though, and he shuts up about it. The rest of them are happy with girls, their red cheeks and their knee-length skirts, their breasts and their glossy smiles. Louis isn't in the closet, or maybe he is. He says he doesn't care. "It's no one’s business," he smiles sharply when they ask if he wants to do something about it, maybe say something to the press. But Louis's business is everyone's business all the time, because Louis overshares so much it's probably criminal in some country, so they don't believe him entirely. It's his problem, anyway.

Liam likes the fame. It's not necessarily the fate he would have chosen, a successful rock band member, silent and watchful, but he likes it well enough. His mother is proud of him and kisses his cheeks when she comes to see him after his shows, even if he tells her that he's gross and sweaty. She laughs and says it doesn't matter. It's a good feeling, and it's easy to get used to, to fall into the pattern.

They fight. Sometimes Louis is  _too much_ , too obscure or annoying or excessive, and sometimes Zayn disappears for days, fucks a girl he shouldn't, forgets to use a condom and they have to pay off a doctor (driving a crying girl to the clinic in the middle of the night, her cries muffled by the tinted windows of a black SUV, is never pleasant). Sometimes Niall is too cheerful when they're all hungover, bouncing and  _loud_. Sometimes they aren't happy with the music, it doesn't come, doesn't sound  _right_ , won't flow into their fingers as it usually does, and they get mad and snap at each other and say hurtful things. But it's good, on the whole. Liam isn't religious, but he prays for it to stay that way.

But then in comes Harry, and it all goes to shit.

Harry is – how can you even describe Harry? Harry is the prettiest fucker on earth, with his curls and his eyes and his  _mouth_ , and of course from the minute Louis sees him he can think about nothing else. They meet him at a party – he's there, suddenly, dangling at Caroline Flack's arm like some kind of trophy toyboy, laughing, head thrown back. Louis's eyes flash in the artificial night, and he slurs,  _I want him_. It sounds like a threat. (It is, but Liam will only realize that later, when it's too late).

They dance around each other for a bit, Harry grinding against Louis and Louis breathing in his ear, going on not-quite-dates that feel daring and adventurous to them and crazy to Liam, and eventually one morning there's a fifth person sitting at the breakfast table in their shared apartment. Harry looks smug. Liam half-hates him (nobody can hate Harry completely). He whispers to Louis,  _he's a gold-digger_. Louis laughs and replies,  _what kind of word is that even?_ , like semantical nitpickings will make him less of an idiot. 

Liam keeps hoping Harry will go away (he knows this kind of girls – they're nothing but trouble) but he doesn't. He sticks to their existence like a vine; Liam sometimes sees from the corner of his eye his vice-like grip on Louis, the way Louis can't see anything but him anymore, eye lit with that kind of spark that starts wildfires. If Liam believed in magic, if he believed in anything that isn't what he can see (but he can see them, he sometimes thinks, when the night is hot and clammy and speaks of old voodoo), he'd say that Harry cast a spell on Louis. 

The band does good, and then it does better. Louis has never been more talented, more prolific, and they win award on award, tour endlessly, Harry trailing in their wake like a bad omen. Louis sings in front of crowded arenas and Harry sneaks out and gets lost in the glittering night, without him. Everyone knows. It drives Louis crazy. He writes songs. (There's one that's called _The Green Devil –_  they all know what – who – it's about, and they hurt each time they see Louis choke it out, spit it at Harry's invisible smirk).

The others like Harry well enough. Niall calls him 'the little minx', but it's fond – he likes him and the way he parties, head thrown back, liberated. Zayn doesn't say anything (he never does) but sometimes his eyes are very black when he watches Harry wander in the tour bus, boxers low on his hips. When Liam and Harry talk, it's always a thinly veiled fight, and it makes Liam's blood boil in his veins, in a not entirely unpleasant way. Liam hates it, even more when Harry notices and smirks at him like he's won. He always wins.

Harry only leaves once. They're all in the living-room, smoking pot, legs lazily tangled, lost in a hazy, seamless dream, and suddenly there's Louis and Harry shouting at each other in the adjoining room, 'slut', 'asshole', 'bastard' (Liam wonders when 'they' became him and Niall and Zayn, when Louis slipped out of their unity). Harry storms out and Louis yells after him, a long, painful yell that sounds like he's losing a lung. 

They don't hear about him for two weeks. Louis doesn't say anything, only drinks and drinks until his eyes are nothing but black slivers of pure anger and longing. Liam thinks,  _pathetic,_ but then, Liam's never in love like that, profoundly and painfully. He doesn't know. Zayn looks at Louis like he could maybe understand, but doesn't want to. Louis's singing is awful, but they're famous enough for it to not really matter. Their new single ranks first in the US charts. Harry is still gone, and sometimes Louis gets so drunk he throws up in the sink at four in the afternoon.

Harry comes back. They leave for the night and when they come back Harry's there, sitting in front of the TV in boxers and a T-shirt, his skin marred with bruises and hickeys. They don't say anything. When Louis comes out of his room, they find the same marks on him, and they watch them smile at each other like tigers and think,  _what a wreck_. But they don't know. They've never been in love like that – maybe it's good, underneath the bruises.

There's more push and pull, after that. Louis no longer handles Harry like he's precious china, careful and loving, fingers trailing the blue curlicues; he manhandles him and maybe punches his shoulder a bit harder that's strictly necessary. Liam still doesn't say anything.  _It's not my problem_ , he repeats in his head like a mantra, wondering if it will come true if he says it enough.

Sometimes they hear the screams through the too-thin walls, the spat 'slut's and the rushed declarations of love. Niall complains about it at breakfast but Harry and Louis just smile at him insolently, looking not quite sated. There are bags under their eyes, and Liam thinks,  _is it love if it makes you unhappy?_ That's why he didn't want to get into rock'n'roll in the beginning. He doesn't  _get_ what the songs are about. 

He gets a girlfriend, Danielle, who's hot and nice and everything he ever dreamt of, and for a while everything is good. Something in him says,  _it's the calm before the storm_ , but he tries not to pay attention. Having a girlfriend doesn't make him less close to the boys, and there's a moment when Louis comes back to them, when Harry fades a bit in the background, not as new, as charming, as hypnotizing to Louis as he used to be.

They're tight again, like brothers – it's out that Louis is gay, but it doesn't really matter, only hurts them a bit, less than it would take to really worry them (everyone loves Harry, anyway – how would they not?). Their management grunts a bit, says that they could have warned them beforehand so they could have done 'damage control', but Louis says,  _there's no damage control in rock'n'roll_. It's a stupid thing to say, Liam thinks. The others laugh. Louis smiles like he's won something. 

But Harry doesn't ever quite disappear. There are some weeks Louis can't say anything but his name, choked and rough, hitting his teeth and bleeding. Harry half-smiles with red swollen lips. He looks at Liam with big, unblinking eyes that seem to say,  _it'll never be over_. It never is. Over. It's never over. 

Once, Louis tries to explain it to them. It's late, and Harry is asleep in Louis's bed – Liam peered in before and he saw his back, sweat-slick and naked, face buried in the pillows. Louis is easy and charming, funny-weird like he always is after a couple of shots. Niall and Zayn are tangled in the couch, and for a second Liam thinks that he couldn't make them apart even if he tried. It's a strange thought. Liam never used to feel alone with them.

Louis moves his hands wildly, licks his lips, and says, "It's – you know how it is" and Liam shakes his head, because he's plastered too and he  _doesn't know_ , he really doesn't, and he wants to. 

"Do you love him?" he asks, and he feels ashamed and naïve when Zayn laughs, quiet and mocking.

"It's not that simple," Louis slurs, sighing.

"It sure isn't," Zayn says, low and maybe a bit accusatory. Louis doesn't notice, or he ignores it.

"It's like drowning," he says, and he takes a gulp of his beer.

Liam thinks of a song Louis has written that goes  _it's like drowning / no oxygen / no fear / it's like a hurricane_. It's not a very good lyric, to be honest, and the rhythm isn't quite right. Liam can't go further than that, even if he tries. He sees the bruises and he thinks  _no_.

Louis wraps him in a hug that reeks of alcohol. "It doesn't matter anyway," he whispers in Liam's neck. "I love you more."

Liam knows it isn't true, but it's nice to hear. It feels like victory, like winning, and Liam doesn't win often, not like that, heady and addicting. He thinks about Harry and his tight jeans and smirks and curls and the way he kisses Louis, straddling his hips like it's a show, and he thinks,  _take that, fucker_. 

It doesn't get easier after that. It could have, but it doesn't. Their popularity lasts, to the surprise of about everyone, and Harry lasts too, to the surprise of no one. Louis is so in love with him that it's not even funny, and none of them can read Harry well enough to know if he is too. Maybe, Liam sometimes thinks when he sees them trade lazy kisses on the couch on sunday mornings, when the setting sun draws a halo around Harry's curls. Maybe not, he thinks when Louis spends the night writing tortured lyrics he'll end up throwing in the trash or when the loud beat of their fucking against the wall in the room next to his flows into his ears.

It's not perfect, it's not ideal, far from it, but it seems to work. Liam doesn't like this careful equilibrium, but after a while he starts to think that maybe he could live with it, get used to the precariousness of their shared existence. Zayn takes up smoking again, and sometimes Liam pretexts to having something to tell him to follow him outside when he has a fag, because he likes the smell of the acrid smoke. He's still not a rebel, but he figures he never will.

And then it happens.

It's a friday. Liam is the type that remembers the days and the hours, and he remembers this one as if it were yesterday, a friday, four in the afternoon, the sun low and lazy, making the red curtains orange and golden. The screams start at four. But they're used to it at this point, and Niall says, "let's get something to eat then, hey? Nando's?" and they nod and follow.

It's midnight when they come back, laughing and drunk, arms casually slung around each other's shoulders. Louis is standing in front of his room, his pupils blown. Liam is the first to notice. He's always the first to notice these things.

"What happened?" he asks in his I-can-fix-it tone. Maybe he already knows he can't fix it, not this time.

(He'll remember, later, that Louis wasn't crying. Louis always cries, except for the most important things, and then it's too-wide eyes, scarily intent.) 

"It's – I – Harry," Louis gargles. 

Zayn has already rushed in the bedroom. He screams. Later, Liam will be glad not to have been the first one to see the body. They join him in the bedroom, leaving Louis kneeling on the rug in the living-room, shaking, his head cradled between his hands. Liam asks, "Is he -" and Zayn nods.

"Shit," Liam says. "Shit, shit,  _shit_."

 Niall isn't saying anything. His eyes are wide and scared.

Liam runs to the living-room and shakes Louis. "What happened, you twat?"

(Is he sad for Harry? Does it do something to him to see Harry's corpse, flat on the bedroom floor, devoid of its usual beauty and cockiness? He doesn't know.)

"I – we were arguing, and I – I don't know, I shoved him, I – we were arguing, I swear, I didn't want to, I, oh my god, Harry, I didn't want to hurt him, I swear, I -," he stutters.

Liam hates him for screwing everything up, and he kisses him, square on the mouth, their teeth clanging, to make it hurt. Louis pulls back and Liam spits at him, "You fucker," because he  _knew_  this was a bad idea, he knew it from the start, why does no one ever listen to him, for god's sake?

But he's too far gone, in too deep, too deep to know how to breathe even if he managed to swim back up, and he knows it, so he pushes himself up, he takes a deep breath, and he says, "Okay." 

Zayn looks at him, tiger eyes, long eyelashes. Liam asks him,  _can you be a murderer, too?_ with his eyes, and Zayn shrugs. Liam figures it's enough of an answer. Niall takes his hand, doesn't look at him but takes his hand and squeezes, hard enough to hurt. Louis is still on the floor. Liam remembers thinking,  _is it love if it makes you unhappy?_ and he wants to laugh at himself. He half-wonders if he will play his drums better after that. 

Nobody will notice the disappearance. Harry has friends but he doesn't have family, all dead in a plane crash or something equally stupid. His friends are ephemeral and drug-addled, their contours blurred – they only come out at night when the air is stale and dirty and they can whisper filthy nothings in the each other's ears. Harry disappears all the time. No one will miss him, except maybe Louis. They'll say they have broken up, Liam thinks revengefully, feeling powerful and guilty at the same time. Maybe he finally gets the songs, he thinks.  _No oxygen / no fear._  

They dump the body in the river at four in the morning. No one sees them as they slink back into the car, Louis broken and wrecked and the rest of them around him like an armour, like a shield.


End file.
